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A22
commentary
Sunday Guardian www.guardian.co.tt October 12, 2014
Isis, or the Islamic State, is the
latest scourge facing the world
today. Its mission as a self-pro-
claimed caliphate is to bring
most Muslim-inhabited regions
of the world under its political
control, beginning with the Lev-
ant, which covers Syria, Jordan,
Isreal/Palestine, Lebanon, Cyprus
and southern Turkey. The organi-
sation claims religious authority
over all Muslims worldwide. No
country is immune. Everyone
who is not a follower of Isis is its
enemy.
Muslims in Trinidad have said
to me that they view the self-
declared Islamic State (previously
known as the Islamic State of
Iraq and the Levant (Isil) or the
Islamic State of Iraq and Syria
(Isis) as un-Islamic. They say
Islamic State is an organisation
with political intent under the
guise of religious principles.
I did an interview with
Lawrence Joffe, author of
Keesing’s Guide to the Mid-East
Peace Process. Over four hours,
when I was able to only get to
the tip of this complicated
region, I learned this: That Isis,
which grew out of the Al-Qaeda
movement, is incredibly clever. It
has expertly manipulated the
media to create a global climate
of fear against the mindless that
surpasses the aftermath of 9/11.
How? Lawrence asked me to
consider this commentary, which
was accompanied with a photo-
graph of Alan Henning holding a
Syrian baby in his hands. His
was the third beheading of a
westerner in as many months.
“Isis militants have released a
video showing the murder of
Alan Henning, who went to Syria
to help people displaced by the
terror of Assad. The video is
short and brutal, with his severed
head placed on top of his body.
The fact that Henning went to
help the people of Syria is irrele-
vant to them—Isis hates anyone
who doesn’t follow their ideolo-
gy.”
I got a crucial history lesson.
In the early seventh century
AD in present-day Saudi Arabia,
the Prophet Mohammed founded
Islam, which his followers con-
sidered a community as well as a
religion. As they spread across
the Arabian Peninsula, they
became an empire which expand-
ed just as the neighbouring Per-
sian and Byzantine empires were
ready to collapse. In an astonish-
ingly short time—from
Mohammed’s death in 632 to 652
AD—they managed to conquer
the entire Middle East, North
Africa, Persia, and parts of
southern Europe. They spread
Islam, the Arabic language, and
the idea of a shared Middle East-
ern identity—all of which still
define the region today. Isis
wants a return to this time.
I asked Joffe what Isis wants.
The brief answer is that Isis is
claiming that ever since 1924,
when the western world drew
artificial borders, for the first
time in Muslim history in 1,500
years there was no caliphate.
They said the Muslim world had
been orphaned and everything
went wrong because of that,
including the creation of the state
of Israel. They claimed that Islam
took a wrong turn after the death
of the Prophet Mohammed and
they want to take it back to the
“pure” version of Islam. This
means innovation is un-Islamic.
As are philosophy, jurisprudence,
development, architecture, educa-
tion, women’s rights. They hate
the Shia Muslims. They hate
Sufis.
They denounce all non-Mus-
lims. They denounce democracy
as un-Islamic, denounce anything
that doesn’t have to do with
Islam. They reject democracy.
They want to knock off all bor-
ders till the world is one massive
Islamic State. They claim they
are going back to the fundamen-
tals, the word of Allah, which
makes them fundamentalists.
How has Isis succeeded in pet-
rifying the world? This is what
Joffe told me: “As long as you
terrify people you win a war
against terrorism. After the
bombings in London, I was
scared to travel in the Under-
ground.” People felt anybody with
a Muslim name and a backpack
would blow up a Tube station.
They play the game of fear
well, as Lawrence reminded me.
“Al-Qaeda killed three-and-a-
half thousand people in 9/11.
These people have terrified the
world by cutting the heads off
two journalists and an aid work-
er.
“That’s the paradox. On the
one hand, they have an atavistic,
backward philosophy. They say
they emulate the Prophet.
“In actual practice, they use
social media, publicity, TV, prop-
aganda techniques of the west,
and the military weapons and
techniques created by the west.
“The guy doing the beheading
has a South London accent. They
call him Jihadi John, and I doubt
he knows the first thing about
Islam. Isis started in Iraq, moved
to Syria, and every day gets new
recruits from the west through
Facebook, mosques, gyms, boxing
clubs. They currently have an
army that’s 30,000 strong.”
We in T&T should find the
spread of Islamic fundamentalism
especially alarming because its
recruits from France, from the
UK, from the US, are similar to
the ones used in the 1990 coup
attempt. The west is alarmed
because its recruits are young
impressionable boys and girls in
the west looking for a reason to
live, and die. Already we hear the
whispers of fundamental
Islamists in some corners of our
country.
We need to be vigilant. We
need to give our sons and
daughters a proper education, the
hope of democracy, a reason to
live in peace. We need to see that
fundamentalists have nothing to
do with Islam. It has to do with
power, money, ignorance, and
inhumanity of a handful of lost
souls who are anything but
Islamic.
Failed state? That’s going it a
bit. But if we have a cate-
gory of “not massively successful
state,” Jamaica fits like a glove.
For the past week, the Gleaner
has been running reports on a
survey completed last month by
pollster Bill Johnson.
Almost three-quarters of the
1,200-strong sample said Jamaica
is heading in the wrong direc-
tion. Fewer than one in ten say
it’s moving the right way, with
the rest down as “don’t knows.”
Portia Simpson Miller’s gov-
ernment swept to power not
quite three years ago. It now
faces a bad case of mid-term
blues.
The main problems? Two-
thirds put economic difficulties
top of the list—unemployment,
poverty or a lack of money.
One-third said crime. Corruption
is a worry. But based on the sur-
vey, Jamaica’s real hang-ups are
about sex.
Three months ago, IMF man-
aging director Christine Lagarde
gave a strong report card to Por-
tia’s IMF programme. But
Jamaicans are feeling the pinch.
Portia has 30 months at most
to play with. There won’t be
much scope for handouts. The
Bank of Jamaica reports GDP
growth of just 0.9 per cent.
That’s in the same lacklustre
range Jamaicans have come to
know and love for the past 40
years. The IMF warns of “reform
fatigue.”
Bill Johnson asked respondents
what proportion of those who
run their lives are “corrupt and
should be fired.” The median
answer was 70 per cent of elect-
ed politicians; 50 per cent of
government employees; and 80
per cent of the police force.
There’s plenty of anger there.
What about justice? Almost all
the sample—96 per cent—think
the legal system treats poor peo-
ple less well than the rich. And a
huge majority—95 per cent—
think rich and poor should get
equal treatment. But fair treat-
ment should not extend to all
Jamaicans, apparently. Two-
thirds of the sample said gay
men and lesbians should not
have the same rights as other
citizens within the Jamaican legal
system.
Meanwhile, 82 per cent said
gay men are currently treated
unfairly by the legal system and
police. So, that’s alright, then?
Nice. And 91 per cent want to
keep the ten-year prison sen-
tence for “the abominable crime
of buggery.”
Abortion? There’s a clear
answer here, too. Keep it illegal,
keep it unsupervised, keep it
unsafe. At present, there’s a life
sentence in prison for a woman
who has an abortion. Rape?
Incest? Same law.
And 69 per cent of the sample
want to keep it that way.
If “the mother endures pain,
that is part of the cross,” says
the elderly Richard Ho Lung,
founder of the Catholic Mission-
aries of the Poor. Jamaica, he
says, is fending off a “definite
push on the part of the evil one.”
Pain there is, aplenty. “I have
seen many women coming into
my office bleeding,” the Health
Ministry’s director of health pro-
motion, Dr Kevin Harvey, told
the Jamaica Observer last year.
Sex education? More than
two-thirds of respondents said it
was not just a matter for par-
ents; churches and schools
should be involved, too. That’s a
bit odd, because three months
ago, a lobby group, Jamaicans for
Justice was knocked to bits by
the media for running a sex edu-
cation programme in six chil-
dren’s homes. The Youth and
Culture Minister Lisa Hanna
asked her lawyers what action
she could take against them. But
then, Jamaicans for Justice is not
a church. So perhaps that’s the
problem.
If the churches do take charge
of sex education, young
Jamaicans may hear some inter-
esting advice.
“We tell our young people to
keep themselves pure and to not
indulge in fondling and other
sexual things,” says Pastor Milton
Gregory, executive secretary of
Jamaica’s Seventh-Day Adven-
tists—Jamaica’s largest religious
group, with 12 per cent popular
support. He adds: “I believe that
kissing is an upstairs invitation to
a downstairs situation and it is
best to save yourself for your
spouse.”
According to the 2001 census,
less than a quarter of Jamaican
mothers are married. So three-
quarters have apparently not
heeded the good pastor’s advice.
And the schools? Seems like
they’re all excited about 11 inch-
es.
José Martí High School decrees
that girls’ skirts should hang a
full 11 inches below the knee.
Teachers check skirt length with
rulers and send students home if
there’s too much flesh showing
above the ankle. Fewer than half
of that school’s Grade 11 students
pass CSEC English. But at least,
their calves are well covered.
José Martí? Yep, same José; the
nineteenth-century modernist
writer, and founder of the Cuban
Revolutionary Party, which
fought for independence from
Spain.
Last month, the Gleaner pub-
lished pictures of girls from a
half-dozen Jamaican schools, all
wearing uniforms which looked
hideously uncomfortable for the
stifling Kingston heat.
Victorian-style uniforms won’t
get students studying. Telling
teenagers not to kiss won’t make
them chaste. Jamaica’s outdated
buggery laws just make the
island look stupid. A legal system
which is soft on the wealthy
won’t get rid of corruption. And
sacking Portia won’t unleash a
magic fountain of wealth.
Polls tell a story: but it’s time,
perhaps, for a Jamaican reality
check.
SPREAD OF ISLAMIC FUNDAMENTALISM ALARMING
JAMAICA: SEX AND SELF-DECEPTION
IRA MATHUR
irasroom@gmail.com